Make New York Post a Preferred Source State Attorney General Letitia James has been tapped to lead the "Cornell 7" investigation. Zuma / SplashNews.com When she chose Attorney General Tish James to lead the Cornell 7 investigation, Gov. Kathy Hochul had to know how bad it would look to everyone but the lynch mob and the ignorant — so why do it anyway?
James is as partisan as it gets, persecuting her enemies and ignoring outrages by her fellow-travelers: bad news for President Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association, good news for Medicaid fraudsters and allies looting nonprofits.
And she’d publicly prejudged the Cornell case days before Hochul tapped her, declaring that what Jane Doe was “forced to endure is horrific and unacceptable” — but then again so had Hochul, who said the accuser was “failed at every turn.”
The most obvious explanation is that Hochul believes she benefits from maximizing the hysteria here.
The gov is up for re-election and got humiliated by nearly losing in her last run, with no less than Nancy Pelosi torching her for failing the party; she’s going to pull out all the stops.
And elevating rape accusations a la the height of #MeToo looks to be a great way to get women out to vote against Republicans; Tish James will produce just the headlines Hochul wants (even if the case collapses after Election Day).
Of course, the gov might have other reasons: It’s possible that James demanded the assignment, and Hochul decided she owed her.
After all, Tish oversaw the sexual-abuse investigation/report that forced Gov. Andrew Cuomo to quit in 2021, leaving Kat to take over — and rapidly dropped her own 2022 primary run for the top job when it became clear Hochul had boxed her out.
Beyond worries about her own re-election, James has spent her entire career hunting headlines via political posturing with zero regard for the actual facts or the law; even before Hochul tapped her, she was angling to get a piece of the Cornell case by announcing she’d probe how the school handled its investigation.
In the end, it may not matter whether this was a political favor, a corrupt bargain or simple sleazy electioneering.
The bottom line is that Hochul has again proved she, like James, sees “the rule of law” as nothing but a joke on the rubes who believe in it.
